[News] Jena - Prosecutorial Misconduct More Dangerous Than Racism

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/washington09222007.html

September 22 / 23, 2007


Prosecutorial Misconduct More Dangerous Than Racism


The Injustice in Jena

By LINN WASHINGTON, Jr.

The stench surrounding the office of Louisiana's 
LaSalle Parish prosecutor Reed Walters, for his 
discriminatory decisions in the Jena 6 case, is 
about to become more malodorous activists 
announced during recent anti-Walters protests across America.

Activists leading these coordinated 
coast-to-coast protests announced plans to 
collect dirty sneakers and send them to Walters.

Sending sneakers is a mocking slap at Walters' 
decision to press serious assault charges against 
six black teens arising from a school yard fight 
on the specious claim that they used deadly 
weapons against the white victim: their sneakers.

Walters' claims kicking the white youth during 
the fight where the victim sustained no serious 
injury constituted use of deadly weapons ­ an 
offense that could land the black youths in prison for decades.

Walters is the same prosecutor who initially 
refused to press charges against white teens who 
bashed a black teen in the head with a beer 
bottle while ejecting him from a 'whites-only' 
party last fall in Jena, a small rural town about 
40-miles northeast of Alexandria, La.

And, this is the same prosecutor still refusing 
to charge a young white man for pulling a shotgun 
on a few black teens in Jena yet the same 
prosecutor who has lodged theft of firearm 
charges against those black teens for refusing to 
return that weapon to its owner.

"We are collecting sneakers ­ dirty, stinky 
sneakers ­ to send to that racist DA in Jena," 
declared Philadelphia NAACP branch president J. 
Whyatt Mondesire during remarks at a protest in 
that city held simultaneously with a massive 
demonstration that recently paralyzed Jena.

The actions of Walter plus those of other 
officials and individuals in Jena, La are now the 
latest flashpoint in America's cauldron of race-related problems.

That school yard fight involving the Jena 6 
culminated a series of interracial incidents at 
Jena's high school that began in Fall 2006 when 
three white students placed lynch nooses on a tree in the high school's yard.

The nooses appeared after blacks sat under that 
school yard tree traditionally considered a 'whites-only' shade spot.

Incidents after the nooses involved white teens 
attacking black teens ­ with fists, beer bottles and that gun incident.

Top Jena school district officials overruled the 
high school principal's recommendation to expel 
the trio responsible for hanging the nooses, 
dismissing their inflammatory action as an adolescent prank.

DA Walters is the lawyer for Jena's school 
district. It is unclear if Walters played any 
role in overruling decision to suspend not expel.

Yet, a recent report from Jena by Democracy Now 
host Amy Goodman states Walters refused the 
school board access to a school district report 
on the school yard fight during the board's 
deliberations before it voted to expel those 
black teens' involved in that fight.

Some see Walters' withholding information from 
school board members (the district's report) as 
analogous to a prosecutor withholding evidence 
from a jury during a criminal proceeding ­ which is misconduct.

Walters strenuously rejected charges that race 
played any role in his prosecutorial decisions 
during a press conference the day before that 
protest in Jena that drew tens-of-thousands of 
participants from across America.

Flanking Walters at his press conference was the 
white victim of that fight, a young man treated 
at a hospital yet well enough to attend a high 
school function hours after the fight. Witness 
claim this youth precipitated the fight by 
taunting the black teen beat with the beer bottle with racist epithets.

Walters declared, "It is not and never has been 
about race. It is about finding justice for an 
innocent victim and holding people accountable 
for their actions. That's what it is about."

During that press conference Walters said he 
wanted to prosecute the students accused of 
hanging the nooses but couldn't find any applicable Louisiana law.

Many ridicule Walters' proposition.

Critics contend since Walters was creative enough 
to find deadly weapons in sneakers he could have 
made some creative use of laws regarding 
disorderly conduct or terroristic threatsif in 
fact he felt as claimed that the noose hanging was a "villainous act"

In July 1934 a prosecutor in Bastrop, La ­ about 
60-miles north of Jena ­ refused to investigative 
the lynching of a black man in that town's public square.

This white prosecutor told a mob numbering 3,000 
that he "sympathized with its attitude" moments 
before the hanging of this suspected criminal, 
according to an account in a New York newspaper.

The sympathy shown to whites by that 1934 
prosecutor in Bastrop is eerily similar to 
sympathies displayed by Walters whose 
impermissible race based charging practices 
violate any legal discretion given prosecutors for lodging charges.

The reality is Walters making sneakers 'deadly 
weapons' to press the most serious criminal 
charges against the Jena 6 arguably abuses if not 
violates Louisiana's Rules of Conduct for prosecutors.

Rule 3.8 of that lawyer Conduct code is 
captioned: Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor.

Rule 3.8(a) states prosecutors should "refrain 
from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor 
knows is not supposed by probable cause."

Probable cause, according to standard legal 
definitions, includes an apparent state of facts 
which would induce a reasonably prudent person to 
believe that the accused committed the crime charged.

A school yard fight (even a beat-down) with no 
serious injury does not rise to the level of 
attempted murder ­ the charge Walters' initially lodged against the Jena 6.

Presumably Walters knows Rule 3.8(a).

When Walters declared his refusal to answer all 
reporters' questions about aspects of the Jena 6 
case that press conference, he cited restrictions 
on public comments by prosecutors regarding 
pending cases contained in Rule 3.8(f).

A claim by Walters that he is bound by Rule 
3.8(f) but is unaware of Rule 3.8(a) would sizzle 
with more idiocy than his previous statements defending his actions.

While racism is rampant in matters revolving 
around the Jena 6, this incident exposes a deep 
seated problem infecting American society: abusive misconduct by prosecutors.

Abuse by prosecutors is a profound problem 
nationwide routinely dismissed by authorities and 
the public at-large. The mandate for prosecutors 
is to seek justice not just conviction ­ a duty too many prosecutors disregard.

"Prosecutors have destroyed the rule of law and 
put rule by prosecutors in its place," Paul Craig 
Roberts noted in an excellent article posted on Counterpunch in August 2006.

In 1999, the then head of the National 
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers remarked 
that the "problem of prosecutors breaking the law 
is more frightening, and does more damage to 
society, than any common criminal."

While the numbers of certified bigots among 
prosecutors engaged in misconduct may be small, 
the number of prosecutors knowingly offering 
false testimony (often from police), fabricating 
evidence, concealing evidence of innocence and 
chucking fair play is alarmingly large.

A win-at-any-cost attitude is widely viewed a 
driver for prosecutorial misconduct.

Rare public outrage at prosecutorial misconduct 
appears reserved to high profile cases involving 
whites like the Duke lacrosse players. 
Authorities stripped the law license from the DA 
in that case, Mike Nifong, even sending him to 
jail for a day following televised disciplinary 
proceedings that constituted a very public flogging.

In contrast to Nifong, the Texas prosecutor 
responsible for the false convictions of 38 
people in an infamous 1999 drug raid occurred outside televised glare.

Offending prosecutor Terry McEachern received a 
wrist slap penalty of paying $6,225 in fines and 
promising to not break lawyer rules for two years.

The misconduct of now ex-prosecutor McEachern, 
lead to authorities paying $5-million to the 
victims of that Tulia, TX drug case resting 
solely on claims of a corrupt undercover agent.

One speaker at that pro-Jena 6 protest in 
Philadelphia, respected defense attorney Michael 
Coard, said the best defense against 
prosecutorial misconduct is aggressive, consistent action against offenders.

"If prosecutors knew they would loose their law 
licenses and get locked-up, they won't engage in 
misconduct," Coard said acknowledging little 
likelihood of that happening because most judges are ex-prosecutors.

Linn Washington Jr. is a Philadelphia based 
journalist who is a graduate of the Yale Law 
Journalism Fellowship Program. Washington is a 
columnist for The Philadelphia Tribune, America's 
oldest African-American owned newspaper.




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